Learning to Speak

What the fuck is up with the modern Collegiate Language Program?  Sure, I capitalized that like it's some sort of official terminology, but bear with me.

I've alluded to, in times past, my current efforts at upgrading myself to the ranks of 'college graduate' instead of 'schmuck with a formerly great career without a sheepskin', so let me delve a little deeper.

Now, I'm no expert on college degree programs, despite having spent many hours over the last two decades in and out of college classes in... four... different campuses in two states. It seems remarkably hard to get modern colleges to open up about some of the obstacles that lie ahead of anyone pursuing a degree, such as an utter unavailability of entry level classes in various fields, of changing course codes that force you to get special permissions to continue in the same track you've been on for two years (such as my recent discovery I no longer had, officially, any prerequisites for Chemistry, despite having taken organic and inorganic chemistry... I can now either beg the chemistry department for special dispensation to continue OR take Intro to Chem... for the fourth time in my life... No, I've never failed it, or gotten less than an A.)...

But one thing I do know is that I will require three quarters (my school doesn't do semesters) of foreign language. We can talk about bullshit requirements vs core curricula, but I generally don't mind. I like languages and I've always been appalled that the son of two translators, one fluent in at least three foreign languages, somehow never managed to learn... well... anything.

So I'm not gonna grouse about needing, oh, Japanese to master Engineering.

But...

Having studied Japanese before, with a  former DLA instructor, I am painfully aware of just how bad my current teacher is. Oh... not in Japanese! That's her native language, after all... just as it was my former instructor's.  She knows the language, but I'll be whipped a liar if I said she had any fucking grasp of how to teach it.

I'm not entirely certain its her fault. Oh... she certainly shares the blame, and I'll get to that, but back in April of last year, when I aborted my attempt at getting back into school for 'other' reasons, I took Spanish, another 'easy' language for me, and I ran into many of the same structural problems.

Lets look at the structural problem, one that I'm absolutely certain is not confined to this one campus, and this one department... and in all likelihood is not confined to this one state.

The purpose of all language is to communicate, to transmit ideas, concepts.. thoughts.  For that one needs words. So, with me so far?

We can argue, in great detail, that the primary component of languages is, in fact, words. Vocabulary. The more words you have, the more ideas you can communicate, the fewer words the few ideas.  Children start learning their mother tongue with words. Mama, papa... No, yes. Simple shit, really.

Syntax and grammar come later, and more complex rules of grammar come after than.  Eventually you learn to read and write, which for many people comes never.

But at the very fucking heart of language remains... words.

Three weeks into the quarter, full of tests, I am expected to have mastered entirely the Japanese hiragana alphabet (which is 57 or so letters...), a complete mastery of proper sentence structure... with absolute failure on any given question for minor mistakes like using -san for myself or a member of my family, or putting the 'ten-ten' marks that change the pronunciation of a letter from 'Te' to 'De' where computer fonts 'erroneously' put it, instead of higher on the letter....  but I only know one verb "Is", and I can only tell you that I am a grade school student, and that it is half past five PM.

One verb.

I write, in a hurry due to the teacher's inability to manage time, two sentences a day for class. So far I've gotten zero points on roughly three quarters of the assignments for insane little errors, like making the second a in 'namae' a little too small, or, when I used Hiragana for 'Desu'... that verb, mimicking computer font placement of the ten-ten hashmarks.  Zero points.

I will undoubtedly fail the class unless I can learn to communicate with the fluency of a native one of the half dozen legitimate sentences I can construct with the vocabulary I have been taught so far.  I would walk out in disgust, possibly with a very verbal and obvious protest over the bullshit if my sole source of income at the moment wasn't my GI Bill.   I could, and have, taught myself more japanese on my own, and probably will again in the future.

Let me stress again: In three weeks of daily classes I have learned the verb 'Is' and 'Is?'. Not 'Is Not'... negative sentences are out of the question! I have also learned how to tell time, to talk about my family, and to tell you what grade of school I am in, which is damn near irrelevant for a college student, even in Japan.  I can tell you that I am a doctor, and that I am chinese... neither of which are true. I suppose I could tell you that YOU are chinese, or a doctor... but why would I?

In the 1800's some rather smart fellow came up with a language called Basic. I'd be more exact, by my internet has gone wonky and researching while blogging is essentially impossible these days.  By more exact I mean I'd have a link, a name and a date... none of which are more than passing interest.

Anyway: Basic is essentially English, stripped to the bare bones. It has a truly staggering vocabulary of... 800 words. Yet, it allows one to communicate almost any simple idea fully.  Oh, you won't be writing the collected works of Shakespear with it... heck, you might not even be able to follow the plays, but you can tell people what you need to tell them, and they can tell you back what you want to know.

It is, unlike the colossal wastes of time I've been subject too lately, the art of teaching communication.

Now, I'm not saying that 'basic' is appropriate for all languages...

...

No, wait. That is exactly what the fuck I'm saying.

Now, I know, because I've been here before, that Japanese has some seventeen ways to express a verb.  In English we don't have, for example, a single verb for 'don't run'. We use the verb 'run' and add a negative word. We do, however, have a past tense 'ran', and if you want to get squiggly, we can say 'will run', but that's really in the same category as 'don't run'.  Run, and ran... pretty much it, everything else is adding more words.

Japanese? Seventeen different words for 'run', with a host of wacky rules to follow. Hey, that's language for you.  I assure you those crazy furriners get confused when someone explains how 'Be' and 'Is' are essentially the same verb in different tenses.

The thing is: There is no real profit in explaining all these different verb tenses to someone who... has no fucking verbs to 'tense'.  So what if a three week japanese student talks a bit like a five year old? At least he's talking!

But no: Every language class I've been to would rather you talk like a master of elocution... with the vocabulary of a parrot.  Not just Japanese, either, as my Spanish teacher was pretty much the same. They teach truly trivial words, or words only useful in the classroom.

Example:  the words I say the absolute most in my current class?

Hai, soo desu and Iie, Chigaimasu.

Or 'Yes, that is right' and 'no, that is wrong'.   The TEACHER says all the vocabulary words, over and over again with crappy little drawings that we are supposed to interpret, and all we say is 'yes' or 'no'.

Now: I get that people learn things in different ways, and I'm cool with that, but I can't imagine that just hearing the words over and over again for five minutes, while chanting en masse completely different words is conducive to higher learning. Its like watching the teacher do all the math on the board while you occasionally shout 'Equals!'.  You might pick up some math, but you're probably better off doing problems yourself, right?

Now, my own teachers foibles aside... such as yelling at students for taking notes...

I have come to realize that colleges don't seem to want you to learn foreign languages. I'm especially convinced that the Japanese don't want Americans to learn Japanese. I'm not sure what the purpose of collegiate language classes ARE, aside from a way to squeeze money from students, but they aren't for learning to speak.

Which, as scams go, is pretty pointless.

I'll illustrate by means of an incredibly awkward metaphor: Lets say I want to scam you out of five dollars, so I tell you that I'll go get you some Ice Cream while you hang out in the shade. If you give me the five dollars and I give you Ice Cream, we're both reasonably happy... I got whatever the change was for the ice cream, and you got a tasty treat. If I run off with the money I'm happy, and you're sad.

If, on the other hand, I instead come back with a hotdog that cost the same amount as the ice cream...

what, exactly did I gain by scamming you? I mean: I still keep the change, so I still got that going on for me, but now you're pissed because you were looking forward to a tasty sweet, cold treat, and you got a salty, soggy meat byproduct. You probably will be less likely to give me a fiver to go on a food run, since I've just proven unreliable.

See: the school will pay for the classroom and the teacher, regardless of what the curricula is, so why not actually offer a practical, useful curricula? Why not actually teach the fucking language in a way that allows the students to... you know... speak it?

Syntax, grammer, even tenses and minor points of etiquette (and boy does Japanese have a lot of those! You have to learn TWO sets of terms for family members, so you won't sound to arrogant by being respectful when talking about your mother...), all come quickly from context. Stripped of context, however, they are just... vague notions, that require work and study and practice to master, and they do very, very little to improve your ability to speak.

The entire process is an exercise in frustration for the student.